Winter mornings in Ontario begin in the dark, with a kettle on and headlights swinging out toward Ridge Road. Annie's runs snow removal here, plowing driveways and clearing the walk to the door so the first step out of the house lands on pavement instead of powder. The old ridge that carries Route 104 across town catches wind in a way the flats never do, and a drift will rebuild across a driveway twice in one night. There is real satisfaction in the second pass, the one nobody sees, the one that means a car pulls out clean at seven. By the time the sky goes gray over the fields east of town, the night's work is already behind them.